Time To Brag About Not Getting Sick Again

I don’t mean to brag, but tThis is the third year in a row I haven’t gotten sick—not the flu or anything else. This is even with living in a small house with a wife and two kids who all got sick, and with a 9-5 type of sit-down desk job.

There was a time late last year when I started to get sick. For maybe a day or two I developed some of that flu-like fatigue, but it wasn’t severe enough to cut down activity at all, except for going to bed a little earlier than normal. The fatigue dissolved on the third day.

Here’s what I did/didn’t do. In last year’s post I mentioned these things but there’s a few different factors.

• No flu shot.
• No obsessive use of hand sanitizer. I think I used it maybe once or twice the whole season.
• No alien mushroom supplements or detox/cleansing schemes. From time to time I took a multivitamin, Tummy Tuneup, or Immuno Max, like before, but I was far from being religious about it.
• A diet high in fat and cholesterol, moderate in protein, low processed carbs and sugar, with lots of vegetables and fruit. That’s animal and nut fats, by the way, not test tube-Frankenfat. I eat bacon and eggs, full-fat cheese and other dairy, and fish many times per week, sometimes every day. I add full-fat butter (Kerrygold is my favorite) to nearly everything and use olive oil where appropriate. The diet is not exactly paleo because I eat legumes and dairy, and the occassional side of pasta or rice, but it’s fairly close. Sure, I’ll have a cheat meal here and there, but I don’t stress about it (see last item below). Larabars are a quick and easy way to get nuts and fruit. I don’t count calories at all.
• A batch and a half of beef bone broth. Great for cold mornings, an adding different veggies and bacon will kill hunger until lunchtime.
• Smoothies nearly every day. There are some slight variations among them but the key sickness-preventers are various dark berries and spinach or mixed greens.
• Daily resistance training. Well, mostly daily. Some days I rested or went easy. 30 minutes of moderate to high intensity. No weird infomercial contraptions. Just bodyweight, weights, push up bars, and a pull up bar.
• Mild to moderate cardio: two mile bike ride or walk in frigid temperatures, twice a day. If you can walk and have the right clothing, all you need is a disposition adjustment and it’s easy. Hint: if you have a good jacket, hands-in-pockets is much more effective and cheaper than $200 winter gloves.
• Lots of coffee, sometimes with full-fat creamer, but usually black. I drink barely any water since I don’t get thirsty at all.
• Sleep is okay, but not ideal. 5-6 hours a night, a little more on weekends.
• Little to no stress. I don’t get riled up about stupid or inconsequential things, and most things are stupid or inconsequential in the grand scheme of life.